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Troubleshooting custom domain set up and HTTPS/SSL
Troubleshooting custom domain set up and HTTPS/SSL

Running into issues setting up your Help Center custom domain? This article goes through a number of troubleshooting steps you can try

Ivan avatar
Written by Ivan
Updated over a week ago

Check you have set the correct CNAME

If you're using HTTPS (manual setup) or HTTP, check that the the CNAME record set is set to:

  • If your workspace is hosted in the US - custom.intercom.help

  • If your workspace is hosted in Europe - custom.eu.intercom.help

  • If your workspace is hosted in Australia: custom.au.intercom.help

If you're using HTTPS (quick set up), check that the CNAME record is set to:

  • If your workspace is hosted in the US - us.intercomhelpcenter.com

  • If your workspace is hosted in Europe - eu.intercomhelpcenter.com

  • If your workspace is hosted in Australia: au.intercomhelpcenter.com

HTTPS (quick set up) might not be available for your workspace.

To check which region your workspace is hosted in, look at the URL bar of your browser when you're using Intercom.

If the URL beings with:

  • app.intercom.com, your workspace is hosted in the US

  • app.eu.intercom.com, your workspace is hosted in Europe

  • app.au.intercom.com, your workspace is hosted in Australia

Check that the CNAME changes have propagated

CNAME changes take some time to propagate. These might take up to 72 hours depending on your provider.

You can check if the CNAME change has propagated using a tool like MXToolbox.

Make sure to use CNAME Lookup in MXToolbox

If you're using HTTPS (manual setup) - in this case, running a CNAME check would typically not return any data as there is no need for the DNS to be linked to an Intercom domain. The configuration is done within the service you set up to implement HTTPS.

Check your Cloudflare settings

If you're using Cloudflare, ensure that the cloud beside your CNAME record is orange and that you have set SSL in the "Crypto" section to either "Flexible" or "Full".

Don’t choose ‘Full (Strict)’ as this will result in an invalid SSL certificate.

Make sure your Help Center is set live

Head over to Settings > Help Center and make sure that your Help Center has been set Live.

Check your SSL certificate is valid

If your SSL certificate is managed via 3rd party provider, make sure that it is still valid.

Make sure you have at least one article published

If you're seeing Not found when trying to visit your Help Center, make sure that you have at least one article published. If there are no articles published, your Help Center will be inactive return Not found .

ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH error

This error typically occurs when your old SSL and the new one are conflicting. Since HTTPS (quick setup) option already provides SSL, you should make sure that there is no other SSL certificate configured for this domain on your DNS provider's dashboard

Using Amazon CloudFront?

Ensure you are following all steps in the guide.

Using Custom Reverse Proxy?

  • Ensure guides are followed.

  • Sample CNAME lookup for a reverse proxy setup: will not find anything but will know which DNS server you utilize.


Hitting a 502 error when hitting custom.domain/robots.txt?

If you are using nginx (or ingress nginx) check your logs for:

“upstream sent too big header while reading response header from upstream”

If you find that message in your logs, you need to bump, in the annotation of your ingress (default is 4k):

nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/proxy-buffer-size: "8k"


That will resolve the problem with the 502 error when hitting custom.domain/robots.txt



Still running into issues?

If everything above looks to be in order and you're still running into issues, reach out to our Support team via the Messenger and they'll be happy to investigate this further for you!


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